One thing that's been bugging me for awhile is that all of the civilian ships have no ETA or Destination indicators. You pretty much have to either remember where they are going, and then guesstimate how fast they are by watching their animations. It's really, really, annoying sometimes. Especially when you're trying to move populations around and want to calculate if your food will cause a pop to grow and take up room in a planet before a shuttle arrives. Having logistic ships give you some kind of indicator would go a long way towards making strategies involving moving population around much more practical to excute!

Aside from that, I'd honestly like some more ways to increase shuttle speed. I know there are the passive unlocks from researching peacful techs, but that's not enough imo. Maybe it would be nice to be able to design your shuttles a bit? Kind of like how the Vodyani can design their Arks. That way you can put engines on logistics ships so they don't take ages to reach their destinations. Or some kind of reserach in addtion to the unlocks would be nice.

lol, but the whole point of having an indicator is so you don't have to do a whole ton of micro and experimentation just to see something as simple as when the transport will arrive at its destination. I don't get why they don't have the same type of indicator military ships do.

In the case of food supply ships, being able to quickly (keyword) calculate when they'll arrive lets you more accurately know when an outpost will complete. The ETA on the outposts don't take food shipments into account. This can be critical depending on the situation.

Are you certain of that? It seems that when you start a Colony, the Turns to complete, without adding Buffs, is the amount of Food your Empire has (+spare), thus the more Food income you have the fewer Turns it takes, thus indicating that the ship(s) are totally accounted for and their "arrival" times and or dates are just a visual cue to it happening.

P.S. otherwise an enemy could "totally prevent" any supply ships from ever arriving and or a Colony from ever getting finished but I have watched many of them pass thru enemy territory "unmolested" on many occasions. That is not to say that they can't be Destroyed, but it seems the AI does not prioritize them as a rule.  

AlmondBrown wrote:

Are you certain of that? It seems that when you start a Colony, the Turns to complete, without adding Buffs, is the amount of Food your Empire has (+spare), thus the more Food income you have the fewer Turns it takes, thus indicating that the ship(s) are totally accounted for and their "arrival" times and or dates are just a visual cue to it happening.

P.S. otherwise an enemy could "totally prevent" any supply ships from ever arriving and or a Colony from ever getting finished but I have watched many of them pass thru enemy territory "unmolested" on many occasions. That is not to say that they can't be Destroyed, but it seems the AI does not prioritize them as a rule.  

I have starved several AI outposts into oblivion by blockading the route of their logistics ships to the outpost and just destroying them when they are forced to stop for a turn. The AI outpost description eventually goes from "X turns to Colony" to "X turns to outpost destruction" or something like that. I generally get a war declaration after that. Well I did for the Lumeris for sure.

I'll have to take another look to be sure, but you can see the progress bar in exact numbers if you mouse over it. On fast setting it takes 150 food to complete an Outpost. Just take the current production, divide it by 150 (or whatever number based on your game speed) to see if food shipments are factored into the calculation. That's all besides the point though. Seeing logistics speed can also be useful for other things, namely moving population around. If you can know for sure a shipment of 3 pops arrives in 5 turns, and your pop growth is in 4 turns, you can maybe decide to establish another planet and open up some space for when they arrive etc etc. 

Micromanaging the design of civilian ships? Ehh, I'm ambivalent. Yeah, it would be cool, but it's not a feature I'm dying for either, and I can see the arguments about it adding too much micro feature stuff.

Now, having more transparency in terms of the actual travel of said ships? Totally support that, 200%. 

Slashman wrote:

AlmondBrown wrote:

Are you certain of that? It seems that when you start a Colony, the Turns to complete, without adding Buffs, is the amount of Food your Empire has (+spare), thus the more Food income you have the fewer Turns it takes, thus indicating that the ship(s) are totally accounted for and their "arrival" times and or dates are just a visual cue to it happening.

P.S. otherwise an enemy could "totally prevent" any supply ships from ever arriving and or a Colony from ever getting finished but I have watched many of them pass thru enemy territory "unmolested" on many occasions. That is not to say that they can't be Destroyed, but it seems the AI does not prioritize them as a rule.  

I have starved several AI outposts into oblivion by blockading the route of their logistics ships to the outpost and just destroying them when they are forced to stop for a turn. The AI outpost description eventually goes from "X turns to Colony" to "X turns to outpost destruction" or something like that. I generally get a war declaration after that. Well I did for the Lumeris for sure.

Indeed. As noted, if you bloackade anywhere, you will have an adverse effect. The question was "why is there not more info about the shipments" when moused over... Again, a test will give speed/turns, while destination and content is already shown...

P.S. It appears the Civilian/Supply vessels only ever travel in the Lanes. That can add signifigant travel time. I wonder why they don't get Warp engines from the Military... :) lol